Daughter stole $1 million from me, sobbing mother testifies

Tuesday

LEETSDALE — Olga Ostern began to sob Tuesday as she testified that her daughter had managed to clean out more than $1 million from a bank account belonging to Olga and her husband, Wilhelm.

“Who would believe this, of your own daughter? Your own daughter,” Ostern, 84, said before District Judge Robert Ford called for a break to get Ostern some water.

On the opposite side of his courtroom in Leetsdale, Kimberly Gerard, 55, of Hartle Road, Sewickley, showed little emotion, leaning over now and then to whisper to her attorney. Gerard is accused of deceiving her parents, Olga and Wilhelm Ostern, into signing a power-of-attorney agreement on July 3, 2007, while Olga Ostern was hospitalized with a fractured pelvis she suffered in a fall. Her father, Wilhelm Ostern, 87, has Alzheimer’s disease.

On Tuesday, Gerard and her husband, Christopher Gerard, 58, of 181 Turkey Foot Road, Bell Acres, who is also charged, were ordered to stand trial.

Kimberly Gerard is facing 18 counts of felony theft, four counts of misdemeanor theft, three counts of criminal attempt, and one count each of criminal conspiracy and misapplication of entrusted property. Christopher Gerard is charged with theft and criminal conspiracy.

Ostern testified that she suffered a stroke while hospitalized and doesn’t remember a lawyer coming to her room to oversee her signing a power of attorney. She said she didn’t remember putting Kimberly’s name on the Osterns’ Mellon Bank account, giving her legal power to pay the Osterns’ bills while her mother was hospitalized.

Robert Stewart, Kimberly Gerard’s attorney, said Wilhelm Ostern, a retired executive with Bayer Corp., accompanied his daughter to the bank to sign the paperwork. Bank employee Doug Campbell testified to overseeing the process and said he didn’t know about Wilhelm’s condition. Campbell said Wilhelm was given a card for Olga to sign at the hospital. Christopher sat in on the process, Campbell said.

Detective Frances Laquatra, with the Allegheny County district attorney’s office, testified that a check for $98,000 was made payable to cash from the Osterns’ account and endorsed by Kimberly Gerard, then deposited Sept. 4, 2007, through an ATM into Christopher Gerard’s account. The Osterns’ bank, however, stopped payment on the check.

But Christopher Gerard’s attorney, Marty Dietz of Pittsburgh, said his client did nothing wrong and never signed any checks.

“Presence at a scene is not evidence of a crime, and Chris Gerard sitting in a room is not indicative of committing a crime,” Dietz said.

Stewart argued that the matter was a family dispute that belonged in Allegheny County Orphan’s Court.

“Legally,” he said, “the bank put her on the account with unfettered access to the account.”

Laquatra said bank records show Kimberly abused her power, paying everything from credit cards and mortgage payments for her and her husband to a $4,389.37 Allegheny Country Club membership in Christopher Gerard’s name. Between June 18, 2007, and Sept. 5, 2007, Laquatra testified, Kimberly Gerard wrote numerous checks from the Osterns’ bank account, which shrank from a balance of $1.3 million in May 2007 to $1,427 by September 2007.

Ostern said her daughter became secretive about the account. When she came home from the hospital and asked to see her bank statements, she said Kimberly told her that Christopher had packed them away and that he’d have to dig them out.

Meanwhile, the deed on the Osterns’ home on Hartle Road in Sewickley, assessed at $429,000, was transferred into Kimberly and Christopher Gerard’s names for the price of $1, a transaction Ostern said she never knew about.

She said Kimberly and Christopher moved into the Osterns’ home. Kimberly took over Wilhelm’s master bedroom, and Wilhelm, whom she described as “almost like a child,” was put in a guest room. She said it felt as though Kimberly and Christopher were trying to take over and that everything became theirs. At one point, Olga said Christopher Gerard told her she was no longer the owner of the house.

Olga Ostern said her daughter is “very persuasive” and had a great deal of influence on her parents. Olga described feeling bullied and said it became worse each day. The last straw came, she said, when she asked about coffee and Christopher Gerard threw a large bag of coffee at her.

“That’s when I left. I felt unsafe there,” she said.

The Osterns are now living with their son, Lee Murphy, 56, of Chicago. Murphy said he and his sister Leslie are serving as guardians and caring for their parents. He said his mother, who is frail and had to be helped to and from the courtroom, wanted to testify in person.

“This has been a wrenching ordeal for our family. It is our best hope that we’ll eventually get their assets returned, which we contend were stolen by my sister. We hope that that eventually can be proven in court,” Murphy said.

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